The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian expands on the battles in the book; turning them from a few pages long into 30 - 45 minute epic fights that borrowed more than a little from The Return of the King. While competently choreographed -- this is far from the cinematic epic the overreaching soundtrack wants you to believe that it is.

The movie is entertaining, but rough around the edges. The editing is poor and one scene in particular should have been removed entirely as it does nothing for the film, outside of extend its already substantial length.

Is it better than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? That all depends on your stylistic preferences. If you're the wonderment, fairy-tale, unlimited Turkish Delight type you'll prefer the first Narnia. If you're a darker, sword and sorcery fan you'll consider Prince Caspian the better movie.

Both were worth the price of admission, but both left me feeling like they were one script doctor, soundtrack and/or director away from being the perfect fantasy movies they could have been. That said, Prince Caspian certainly warrants a bucket of popcorn and a fun Sunday afternoon at the theater with the family.

As a little girl, I adored the Chronicles of Narnia books, and I still do. I also liked the BBC adaptations, done in mini-series format, they weren't amazing, but they were enjoyable and stuck to the books' spirit. As far as these film versions go, I haven't yet seen Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I enjoyed Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Prince Caspian was not a bad film, but it could have been better.

Visually, the film is very well done. I loved the cinematography, while the scenery and costumes are gorgeous. The effects are also good, and Aslan still looks brilliant. The music is beautiful too, with lovely melodies. The end credits song was nice, but I think it should have stayed as an end credits song, it didn't seem right placing it in the final scene to me. The direction is decent too, while the battle sequences are riveting, and the film did begin well.

As far as the acting goes, it wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either. The best are Eddie Izzard who is spot on, Peter Dinklage who comes close to stealing the film with his eyes alone and Liam Neeson who lends his majestic voice to Aslan, and while her appearance is very brief Tilda Swinton is quite chilling. The four leads are good enough, and in Georgie Henley's case improved. Edmund also has potential. I had mixed feelings on Miraz though, more to how he was written than how he was acted. Sergio Castellitto does make an effort to make Miraz dark and charismatic for the villain of the piece, but the way Miraz is written and developed makes him come across as insipid. The weak link is Ben Barnes. He is handsome and has his moments, but he is rather bland on the whole.

My real problems with Prince Caspian are in the storytelling and pace mainly. The story has a tendency to become too unengaging, the more involving scenes are well done but the slower scenes are close to ponderous. The pace is rather lethargic this time round, while I don't think the film really needed to be as long as it was and the characters come across as shallow. Also particularly with Caspian and Miraz, some of the dialogue is stilted.

All in all, Prince Caspian is not a bad film, but it lacked something. I also forgot to say as an adaptation of the book it is not great, granted the book was not my favourite of the series but I felt sometimes there was a bit too much padding that could have been excised slightly. A disappointment, but on its own terms and for the visuals and music it is worth a look. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Having just come back from a screening of Prince Caspian, I can honestly say that I got the movie fresh in my mind...and it was amazing! Not only was it better than the first in every way - the story, the acting, the screenplay - but it managed to have more of an edge without sinking into the pitfall that movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean have slipped into.

Meaning that unlike the Pirates sequels (don't get me wrong, I love Pirates, but this is something that bothered me a little), the makers of Prince Caspian did not believe that to make it better and more exciting, they had to gore and bloody it up. Instead, while it is darker, the blood and gore is kept to a bare minimum considering this is an action flick.

Anyway, that now aside, I highly recommend this! It's a great movie - great action scenes, a tad bit of romance but not overly so, and a good plot. Plus the young cast are even better in this film than they were in the first, and Ben Barnes - well, it's right that he is the title character,because he very nearly would have stolen the floor from underneath the original kids if they were even the slightest bit less perfect (William Moseley was the weakest of the five, as he was in the last movie, but he still stepped it up quite a bit).

Granted, I've not read the books, so I don't know if this is as dedicated to the book as many fans would like it to be. Then again, most movies adapted from the books never are. However, if they can find it in them to accept changes for theatrical purposes, I'm sure even the most die-hard fans will admit it "wasn't bad."

It was on a sudden decision that I went with a group of friends to a 9:10 showing of this film that, at the time of this review, was yesterday. I had quite enjoyed the first Narnia, but upon seeing this one, I felt kind of blah. Most of my friends felt the same way. Don't get me wrong, the film is well put together. The visuals are impeccable, the production design is well done, the costumes look great, and the actors do fine. Unfortunately, the material seems to be lacking.

One year has passed in our time, but 1300 years have passed in Narnia. Since the four Penvensie children left, Narnia has been overcome by the evil Telemarines, who have banished all Narnians. Now, the evil king Miraz hopes to permanently establish the Telemarine stronghold, but his throne is threatened by his nephew Prince Caspian. Miraz orders the boy to be murdered, but Caspian escapes, and inadvertently calls for help. This is where the Penvensie children come in, as they are whisked away from London back to Narnia, to restore balance in a now grittier land.

You would think that with a title like "Prince Caspian," the filmmakers would work to make our hero well rounded. Unfortunantely, they really don't. The whole backstory involving the raising of Prince Caspian from the novel has been cut, making our hero less 3-dimensional than we would want him to be. The filmmakers have also seemed to believe that since we got to know the children in the first movie, we don't need much characterization involving them again. King Miraz looks like the bad guy version of King Leonidas from "300," and his motives seem muddled. Not until the end of the film did I really feel his evil presence, and by then, it was hard for me to start fearing him. The result is that we, as the audience, don't feel very involved with the story. There are characters, some good, some bad, but you are not entirely sure what their motives are.

As far as the acting goes, I was fine. There were no standouts with this movie like there was with Tilda Swinton in the last one. Part of this I blame on lacking material.

Since we are not involved with the characters or with the story, all we can do is watch the nice stuff that has been put on screen. Simply put, this is a well put together film that doesn't have a whole lot of material backing it up.

Hopefully the new director for "The Dawn Treader" will do better.

Taking kids to the cinema can sometimes be painful but this trip was as much for me as them; i have read the book countless times and have just finished it with my eldest daughter.

The film was more LOTR than CS Lewis and don't know what he would have made of this interpretation. There was just enough in common with the book as to transfer the empathy that i have built with the characters over the last 25 years. There were some changes and original scenes that were totally unnecessary and the tone of the movie was much darker and action oriented than the book.

The upside is that aside from that it was a very well made film, almost up there with LOTR in terms of great fantasy and infinitely more appealing to anyone over 12 years old than Harry Potter.

After fictitiously originating the pevensies from finchley in the 1st movie, he has now made the telmarines Spanish and that sort of worked OK. The pevensies and caspian were close to what i would have imagined and the supporting cast of dwarfs and mice were excellent.

Another 2 years to wait till Voyage of the Dawntreader; would have liked to have seen Horse and his boy next. Mind you, in theory that could be done in 10 years time with the same actors.

All in all, a great improvement on the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.